Looking back

More times than not in my life I have been faced with difficult decisions, just as each of us has. I am a true believer that it is in those moments, our life can be truly defined. People look at us and how we handle turmoil and make a judgement regarding what kind of person we are.

I had something like this happen very early in my life. I made a very difficult decision that shaped who I was and showed a lot about my character. It is a decision that I have never regretted.

As I continued to grow, I lost the person who made that decision. I lost the girl who turned woman with that decision. I lost the ability to realize that I had choices in life. Most of my big life choices had already been made by that time in my life. I knew who I was going to marry; I knew where we would live; I thought I knew where life would lead me. I think that is where life left me. It left me there waiting to make more decisions and choices that ultimately I quit making.

Could you see this on the outside? No, of course not. To the outside world, as in most cases, everything looked fine. Really it was. I didn't realize any of this, and as in most cases, ignorance can be bliss sometimes, at least for awhile.

I can't tell you the moment in the last two years in which something changed for me. I can't pinpoint it down to anyone time. I think that is the great thing about how this change in my life occurred. It happened so gradual, that one day I opened my eyes and just knew things were different.

Life is full of choices. Each of us have them to make. I had quit making mine. I had let what other people wanted or expected of me get in the way of what I wanted for myself. I had told the voice in my head that it was ok, and we would do what we wanted the next time. My life was about what the world expected of me, instead of what I expect of me.

It is no longer that way. I know that I have choices in this life. I can choose to let things make me angry, or I can choose to set a deadline for that anger and let it go. I can choose to be upset, or I can choose to wake up and be ok. I can choose to do the things in life that I want to do, and be at choice with the things in life that I don't want to do.

Sounds pretty sweet and sugar coated, doesn't it? It is quite the opposite. It is hard to change. It requires a great deal of thought, energy and opposition from others who don't want you to change. But believe me, it is definitely worth every negative, hard thing that comes your way! It is worth that first step no matter how hard it may be to take!!! And never forget that you have a choice in everything that you do and feel!!!!